


Acquired Tastes

by mrstater



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Eating, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Feeding, Food, Force Bond (Star Wars), Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, That's Not How The Force Works, only the forks, there is no peas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-22
Updated: 2018-02-22
Packaged: 2019-03-22 09:12:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13760922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrstater/pseuds/mrstater
Summary: When Kylo Ren and Rey share a meal under most unusual circumstances, they find they have a taste for things they never expected.





	Acquired Tastes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NextToSomething](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NextToSomething/gifts).



> For NextToSomething, who loves "a Ben/Kylo who loves to give Rey good food to eat (and takes so much joy in her enjoying eating it)." This prompt took hold of my brain with three days left and wouldn't let go, but had the courtesy of at least writing itself. I really hope this is, as Rey says in the fic, "to your liking." Thanks for a great prompt and such a great event! And many thanks to my trusty beta, the talented Bratanimus.

The computer terminal hummed softly, the only sound in Kylo Ren's personal quarters save for the steady puffs of his own exhaled breaths as he worked. As close to perfect silence as you could get aboard the _Finalizer_ , certainly closer than he'd ever come to it until recently, with his Master's voice always in his head. If Kylo was honest, the quiet took some getting used to. Perhaps that was why he noticed at once when the silence suddenly deepened, like the vacuum of space--but only for a moment--as the Force cut him off from everything but the girl across the galaxy.

He didn't look up from his computer terminal. He _would not_. He had nothing to say to her that wouldn't be better communicated by lightsaber the next time they met in person. Certainly _she_ had nothing to say that he wanted to hear.

Nevertheless, he heard her.

Smacking.

Slurping.

Sucking.

Silverware clinking against ceramics.

The sounds of other people eating had always set him on edge--quite literally; Kylo slid to the edge of his desk chair, back rigid and teeth gritted. He raised his eyes to the girl, who seemed to sit cross-legged on the other side of his desk, hunched with a bowl in one hand, a spoon in the other.

"Do you _mind_?"

Rey stopped, spoon halfway to her mouth--though not, to Kylo's annoyance, out of courtesy to him. Something to the right of his computer had caught her eye.

"Are you eating dinner, too?" she asked.

He looked that way, and his gaze fell on his meal tray. He'd forgotten it was there. Had he even noticed the service droid bring it to him? He had no recollection of admitting it to his quarters, or of sending it away again.

Looking back at Rey, he noticed several open books scattered around her, on her bunk or the floor, her precise surroundings invisible to him.

 _Too_ , her voice echoed. Wherever she was in the galaxy, they were doing the same thing, working and eating dinner. And for some reason, though he was the enemy she would attempt to destroy the next time they met face-to-face, this pleased her.

Probably it humanized him to her. Made her believe he could be saved.

"Does what you're having even qualify?" he asked. Her _dinner_ appeared to be a meager bowl of beans.

Salthia beans.

Han Solo's face loomed, bearded and bemused, as Kylo remembered him looking to a small boy named Ben. _Open up for the swoop racer, kid!_ he said as he made a spoonful of salthia beans perform aerial stunts. Later, Mother would return from a meeting with some of her fellow senators and slip into Ben's room to kiss him goodnight. _What's all this goop in your hair?_  

"It's a more proper dinner than veg-meat and polystarch," Rey's voice drew him back to the present of his quarters on the First Order flagship, where he was _trying_ to get a little work done.

Veg-meat and polystarch. Kylo's lip curled in distaste. She'd subsisted on _that_ for nineteen years on Jakku? Stormtroopers had better survival rations. He couldn't stop his mind from reaching out to hers, supple and yielding in the bond, and he saw her loathsome Crolute master snatch away her hard-earned salvage haul and, in exchange, toss a few portion packs at her. Like scraps to a mongrel dog.

Somehow, in spite of this, she'd managed to grow strong enough in the Force to become Kylo's equal.

Rey shoveled beans into her mouth. "You haven't touched yours," she said around the bite, jerking her chin toward his meal. "Not to your liking?"

"It's adequate."

"Supreme Leader of the galaxy, and your dinner is merely _adequate_."

With a roll of his eyes, Kylo fixed them on his computer screen once more, but he couldn't focus under the aural assault of her guzzling down a drink. He shot her a glower she didn't see, for her eyes were on his dinner tray. One last gulp, followed by an exhaled _ah_ , then she set her duraplast cup among her books.

"What is it?" she asked, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand.

No mockery this time, just the genuine curiosity of one whose life had lacked even the smallest of creature comforts. Not sure why he was humoring her--all this, and more, would have been hers if if only she'd joined him--Kylo shut off the computer monitor and swiveled his chair so he could move the tray for her to better see.

"Crystal mushroom soup. Sautéed greens. Groat chops, with some kind of berry sauce. Candleberry. Emerald wine."

He looked up to find Rey had set down her bowl and scooted closer to his desk, stretching her neck to see. She was practically ogling his food, tongue darting out to lick her lips.

"You've never had any of that, have you?"

"You can bet if I did, I wouldn't let it get cold."

Kylo brushed off her lecture about his wastefulness without passing comment, for his own curiosity was piqued. He leaned back in his seat, raked a hand through his hair. "We've touched. Through the connection. I wonder if it's possible…"

Rey's hand shot out toward the plate, fingers grasping at his food but not making contact. She withdrew it, expression sheepish, as Kylo fixed her with a stare, biting the inside of his cheek.

"So uncivilized," he muttered.

"You said you wondered if it was possible."

"For you to stuff greens into your face with your _hands_? Did you plan to gnaw that groat chop straight off the bone?"

Her face flushed, her shame a hot flare in the Force. Kylo knew he should apologize. Instead, he picked up the bowl in one hand and took the spoon in the other. He dipped it into the soup, making sure to catch a sliver of translucent mushroom shimmering in the clear broth, and pushed it toward her. Forgetting her embarrassment, Rey grabbed for the handle of the spoon, but Kylo withheld it from her.

"Don't. Grab."

She glowered.

"It won't work, anyway," he said, but offered it again. "Taste."

Rey's eyebrow remained angled in skepticism, but her desire to try the new foods won out. She leaned forward. Touched her lips to the spoon. Something inside Kylo buckled as they curled around it. She sipped. _Slurped_ , but neither that nor her gulp as the savory liquid rolled down her throat bothered him this time.

"It worked!" she cried, radiant as her head snapped up. "Oh, _stars_ , that's the best soup I ever tasted."

She missed his smile as her eyes darted back down to the bowl, hopeful he'd give her another taste. When he placed the spoon in the bowl and set it down, she wilted, only to bloom again when he speared the sautéed greens. Rey took an eager bite, only to recoil, pulling a face. Like a child who'd never been made to eat her vegetables, Kylo thought with a chuckle. Which, of course, she wouldn't have been.

"An acquired taste," he said.

As Rey washed it down with a drink from her cup, he took up his knife and cut off a bite of groat chop. She plainly thought it was too small, but she seemed mollified when he smeared it in the sauce. Again she leaned forward, mouth opening to receive. Kylo stared at her lips curling back, her bared teeth biting down on the tender meat. Her long lashes curling as her eyes fluttered closed.

She _moaned._

Sauce dribbled out onto her lower lip as she chewed. Blood red. He wanted to lick it off. Her tongue darted out and did it for him. His own lips felt desert-dry.

The instant she'd swallowed, Rey asked, "Can I try the wine?"

"That's generally an acquired taste, too," Kylo warned as he extended the goblet toward her. At the sight of her inner lip pressed against the glass, he nearly crushed the stem between his fingers with envy.

"I like it," Rey said, nodding her enthusiasm as she sat back, lips tinted green. "What do you like?"

The abruptness of the question surprised him. "I told you, this is--"

"Not what you find adequate. What does Kylo Ren _like_?"

 _What did Kylo Ren like._ He turned it over in his mind as if it were a riddle. Maybe it was. How long had it been since he cared what he put in his mouth beyond that it filled an empty stomach, and provided the essential nutrition to perform his duty? What had he last eaten for enjoyment? (When had he last done anything for that frivolous reason?)

 _He'll have the spiceloaf with brown dwarf gravy,_ Han Solo told the waitdroid at some unsanitary diner, arm stretched out along the back of a vinyl booth, boot propped on the ripped empty seat beside Ben. He laughed when Ben found it _too_ spicy, but ordered him a blue milkshake to take the heat away.

Kylo blinked away the memory and found himself in Great Aunt Sola's house on Naboo. It smelled like a bakery, and Ben's stomach growled in response to her greeting. But she'd only laughed and said, _Would you like a slice of five blossom bread, fresh out of the oven? You must be so hungry after your journey._ Mother had placed her hand on his shoulder and nudged him toward the kitchen. _When_ isn't _this boy hungry? Always growing._ His great aunt had laughed. _He didn't get that from the Naberrie side of the family!_

 _I got it!_ an older Ben exclaimed, in another diner or maybe it was a cantina, successfully brandishing Corellian buckwheat noodles between the pointed tips of his grub-sticks after several abysmal failures. _That's great, kid,_ said Han Solo, slurping his own noodles into his mouth, _but you're dripping rancor sauce all over your Jedi outfit._

Kylo's throat constricted too tightly for him to tell any of this Rey. Even if it hadn't, she was gone, the huffs of his own breath and the computer hum ringing in his ears.

He ate his dinner, but all he could taste was her.

~*~

The conversations of two dozen or so diners hummed in the cantina, but not loudly enough to mute the smacks and slurps and sucking sounds at his own booth. Ben still found other people's eating noises maddening, but he let the feeling go, focusing instead on the face of the woman who made them. Not across the galaxy, but across the scant distance of a table, the only thing between them a variety of foods. Which included green vegetables.

"Aren't you going to eat, too?" Rey asked as she attempted, without success, to pinch Corellian buckwheat noodles between the tips of her grub-sticks.

 _Too._ They were doing the same thing, eating face-to-face, _together_ , and it delighted her as much as it did him..

Ben lay his own grub-sticks side by side on the edge of his plate. "I haven't had a chance, because I have to keep teaching you how to use those."

He reached to take hold of Rey's hand, once again repositioning her fingers on the grub-sticks. "First stick, like a stylus," he reminded her, placing thumb and forefinger on it. "Second stick, on your ring finger, resting against the base of the thumb. Now _move_ it."

Beneath his hand, her thumb, middle, and index fingers pushed the bottom grub-stick upward around a tangle of buckwheat noodles coated with rancor sauce. Ben took his hand away while Rey gingerly raised the grub-sticks, ends of the noodles swinging and dripping sauce as they dangled precariously over her plate. Her lips parted. Was she holding her breath? Honestly, he'd expected more from someone who'd bested him in a duel the first time she held a lightsaber. They were just utensils, for kriff's sake.

Rather than bring them to her own mouth, she extended the grub-sticks toward him. "Go on, then. Try it."

After a moment's hesitation as he considered how ridiculous he would look, being fed by her in public, Ben decided he didn't give a kark, hunched over the table, and opened his mouth.

As the spicy-sweetness hit his taste buds, his eyes fluttered closed. He sucked the noodles into his mouth without the slightest slurp, but he couldn't stifle a low _mmm_. The taste brought back a thousand memories, some of his father, others of his mother, all of them taking him _home_. Here. With Rey.

When he opened his eyes again, they met her gazing at him with a soft smile which stretched when she positioned her grub-sticks correctly without his instruction and stuffed a large bite into her mouth.

"Come here," Ben said, drawing his napkin from his lap, "you've got sauce…"

She leaned in, but instead of dabbing the sauce from the corners of her mouth with the napkin, he pressed his lips to hers and licked them clean.

He drew back, just enough to see Rey staring, round-eyed, with surprise.

"Was that…to your liking?" he asked.

"An acquired taste," she replied.  

With a huff, Ben raked a hand through his hair and started to sit back, when she caught the neck of his shirt and held him there.

"I like it."

Laughing, she tasted him again.

**Author's Note:**

> All the food mentioned in this chapter can be found in the Wookieepedia...though you won't find an explanation there about what the kark rancor sauce is!


End file.
